I don't understand.
If someone is "honest" and admits he lied it's called lying in Hungary. If someone is caught of lying but keeps lying and try to convince everyone the opposite is OK. The government practices this art on the highest level. Something is not right? No problem, just say everything is Ok or even better than expected.
Let's face the facts, all politicians are liars PERIOD. The whole profession is about acting, presenting half truths, political back-stabbing and vested interest while trying to LOOK credible.
The difference is this government convinced that every lie can be smudged and subdued by simply lying harder.
As an honest, open man I always wondered whether these people are stupid, plain corrupt or both? I don't know which one is better (maybe stupid?).

In the socialist party most degrees are "earned" this way. Equally in the red socialist party, in the orange socialist party and in the "new" green and blue socialists as well... Never unerstood why Orban selecected this creature in the first place... now it's seems logical in the half time he could sacrafice him without really loosing anything and the let's say not very smart opposition is celebrating it as a victory while Matolcsy is still in his place. Ridicoulos! The only tragedy and the luck of Mr. Orban is that his opposition is even more stupid than his bunch. Anyway as long as he keeps the other socialists away he'll do...

Some people forget that Orban was an active communist. He was the secretary of KISZ in his high school and University. His father and mother was communist as well. I'm also convoked that he was a communist agent, which explains why his party blocks every attempt to make those secret agent files public. Hungary is the last one which hasn't done it yet in the Eastern Block.
He is a typical career politician he was probably saw the end of the communism and when it was safe to switch sides he did.
He became famous when he made a speech and demanded Soviet Troops leave Hungary.
Probably Soviet leaders in Kreml thought "Victor Orban demanded we should leave, It's serious this time unlike in 1956 or 1968, we'd better go". What a classic piece of populism!

No it isn't what TibsV says is pretty much the truth, although Orban only allegedly was cooperating with the secret police. That is not proven conclusively but there seem to be a lot of indirect bits of information ...

Please Prinz, which part you think is incorrect of TibsV's comment..

And on top of all that he also used his political power to enrich himself and his family that is also indisputable truth ....

Secondly, while he might have been a communist agent, without proof there is not much point in an accusation.

Thirdly, he did not use his political power to enrich himself. To think shows a complete misunderstanding of Hungarian political corruption.

Fourthly, there are obvious reasons why Fidesz is not doing anything to clear up our communist past, which is not because Orban was a communist but because he needs some people who were: Pinter, Matolcsy, Martonyi, Hoffmann, Bencsik, Kerenyi, Stumpf, ...

I am just urging you to try to stay focused an not get caught up in the type of conspirace theories and insinuations that Fidesz has repeatedly used against its opponents. (Most recently, Janos Lazar's attack on Andras Schiffer's family is a good example.)

On March 27, the investigating committee of Semmelweis University handed in its report on Mr. Schmitt's thesis and doctoral proceedings at the former College of Physical Education which was later absorbed by Semmelweis University. About 36 hours later the university's senate stripped Mr. Schmitt from his doctoral title. Mr. A.L.B., however, did not wait 36 hours and about 8 hours after a short summary of the committee's report appeared on the university's website, posted an article (http://www.economist.com/comment/1341282#comment-1341282) on this blog in which he writes:

"Semmelweis University, a once-respected international institution, has shown the courage of a mouse, say critics, and will see its reputation tarnished for the sake of preserving Mr Schmitt’s image."

I can assure you, Mr. A.L.B. that Semmelweis University still is and will be respected international institution. The present blog post could have given you an opportunity to acknowledge the university's swift action, but you missed it. I am outraged of this treatment of the respected university of which, incidentally, my daughter is a student of.

It's called free press. He/She can write about anything as long as people read it.
My guess is that he/she was waiting for the resignation to have a complete story. Shockingly the unimaginable happened he did not resign!
Instead they made a sci-fi PUPPET SHOW on national TV and called it as an interview.

Unfortunately for your daughter and even more for all students and staff, the reputation of Semmelweis University has been tarnished badly.
There were no "swift action", the whole story started in January and it took them almost 3 months and 3 committees to conclude the obvious. I would not call it swift I would call it coward.
And maybe the Economist is not the one to blame after all.

In his previous blog post, ALB was quoting critics, and this is exactly what they were saying. Events changed the situation, and ALB wrote a second blog post. What is outrageous about that?

SOTE's handling of Schmitt's plagiarism was shameful and bungling. They appointed a committee whose names were secret, and after three months, they released a cowardly assessment that said "Schmitt plagiarized, but that was not out of step with the academic standards of the time." After this sparked outrage, SOTE's faculty senate swooped in for damage management and did the right thing.

The fact is, if you look at the doctors that SOTE produces, it is a mystery why anyone considers it a respected international institution. The entire medical system in Hungary functions on doctors extorting money out of patients for treatment that has already been paid for through rather high healthcare contributions and taxes. The behavior of doctors is unspeakably arrogant and healing patients is a secondary consideration to cash and corruption (albeit there are some doctors who are exceptions). It is no wonder that Hungary's life expectancy is the lowest in the EU (or second lowest, depending on which scale you use).

None of this is intended to impugn your daughter, who may be very respectable. SOTE is not.

"SOTE's handling of Schmitt's plagiarism was shameful and bungling. They appointed a committee whose names were secret, and after three months, they released a cowardly assessment that said "Schmitt plagiarized, but that was not out of step with the academic standards of the time."

No. This is false. The shame on those who blame Semmelweis University in this case. A.L.B. indeed attributed a similar statement to the committee but the committee never said Schmitt was not to be blamed. In other words, A.L.B. built a blog post around a false statement, i.e., he lied.

"ALB was quoting critics". LOL We all know the value and meaning of attributions like "critics say." I wonder what would happen to academic ethics if issues like this were investigated by the like of those "critics."

It took 3 months for Bayreuth University to investigate the zu Guttenberg case in 2011. zu Guttenberg defended his thesis in 2007, that is 4 years before. Schmitt defended his thesis 20 years ago.

"There were no "swift action", the whole story started in January and it took them almost 3 months and 3 committees to conclude the obvious. I would not call it swift I would call it coward."

Semmelweis University was the only player in this story who did their job properly. Their job was not to satisfy hateful and blood-thirsty "critics." They did an investigation and made a decision up to the most stringent academic standards. They are trustworthy, unlike A.L.B.

" The entire medical system in Hungary functions on doctors extorting money out of patients for treatment that has already been paid for through rather high healthcare contributions and taxes. The behavior of doctors is unspeakably arrogant and healing patients is a secondary consideration to cash and corruption."
Please shut up.
Have you ever been to Hungary, i mean recently????

Are you suggesting, perhaps, that doctors and nurses do not pressure pregnant women to fork over a month's take-home salary (100,000-150,000 forints) at the time their babies are delivered, or face the risk of a "mishap?" Are you suggesting that doctors do not overprescribe unnecessary (state subsidized) medicines to their patients in return for special consideration by the drug companies? I have experienced this and more personally. I also did not generalize - I mentioned that there are many ethical Hungarian doctors, but this is in spite of SOTE's training, not because of it.

A guy who calls himself stupidlogistics has just accused me of hulyeseg. I guess that's a great honor.

"It's called free press. He/She can write about anything as long as people read it."

I am not sure you understand it well. Just like academic research, journalism has ethics. "Anything as long as people read it" is more like a business model. But in either case, I am also free to point out where and when A.L.B. is distorting facts. Even if no one reads it, actually.

in a certain sense it might be better if this moron (a puppet of Orban of course) clings to his position as long as possible: his ridiculous figure will serve as a reminder about the true essence of Orban's régime built on lies, sycophancy, and borderline-schizophrenic fanaticism and denialism.

It sounds like you probably already made a few million corrupted Forints in your time so what do you care what happens to Hungary going forward?
So sad....
If anyone laughs at Hungary its becuase of people like you.

Actually I noticed that too... even during the interview. I even pointed out to my wife !!! My take was that the Palace's ghost made him become the soverign WE ... but you may have a more practical point.

Also, anyone noticed that, in Hungarian he was referring to the 'Doktori Ertekezes' as a 'Dolgozat' in english that would translate more like a high-school essay rather than scientific work ... and kept repeating that word. Noone would say that referring to even a simple MS theses let alone for a doctrate 'paper' .... wierd I thought...

Many "respected" paper earlier said that media freedom in Hungary seized to exist.
Now how is that - hvg.hu, online version of HVG, a mainly opposition weekly starts a scandal, which at the end will result that the president has to quit. He is a close ally of Viktor Orban.
Is this typical in countries with limited press freedom?
On the State Television - yes, but this is going on for 20 years now, it was always loyal to the actual government... So nobody is really watching it...

Given your commenting name, you have just registered, and only for this occasion, which means you probably have an agenda. No matter. You are correct in saying that the accusations of censorship in Hungary are overblown. There is no censorship, just laws that give the government undue influence over the press. Seeing as Orban personally released a blacklist of journalists back in 2000 (it might have been 2001), there is no question about his motives.
When it comes to media, as in many other areas, Orban has followed the example his role model and mentor, Janos Kadar: Tolerate criticism up to a certain point, but never let journalists forget that they will be punished if they go too far. To wit: Kata Apati-Toth, once known as the toughest questioner on state television, was fired this week without explanation. The state of press freedom at state TV was never, ever so bad under any other regime since Antall.
You may say state TV is an exception. But Orban's new media laws (most importantly, the massive fines for vague infractions) are the equivalent of allowing the Orbanites to carry a concealed firearm: Nobody knows when the Politburo is going to whip it out and start firing. The so-called opposition news media feels empowered for the time being, because if Orban tried any monkey business, the EU would come down on him like a ton of bricks. Due to his deficit-inflating policies, Orban simply cannot afford more acrimony with his (former) EU friends. He needs their money, and Vlad Putin and Hu Jintao are apparently not willing to pony up.
Finally, it is clear that high-ranking people in the Fidesz apparat have approved of the attack on Schmitt and have given the green light for media attacks. Otherwise, the Magyar Nemzet, which does not write so much as a comma without Fidesz's permission, would never have published the editorial calling for Schmitt to resign.

Daniel Prinz: Not false - I didn't say that state media hadn't delivered the news in 2006 (which was the speech itself you listened to), but the comments, the invitees etc.
Anyway - you MUST know that last time Hungary was PARTIALLY FREE (and not FREE) regarding press (by Freedom House) was between 1995-1998 under the Socialists.
Seal Driver: I just registered, only because I forgot my password. Also consider the above regarding Freedom House... you guys are only worried if you your view are not overwhelming in the media. The rest of your answer is simple bullshitting, sorry. The bottom line is - opposition media created (still creates) huge political scandal in Hungary. The rest is just the bullshit part. No one had been fined (other then TV channels for showing sex before 9pm etc.), no one banned, no one seems to be intimidated.
Or do you want me to quote headlines from recent weeks on the president or on Orban?
Haha.

All I was dearing to say about what happened in 2006 is that the radio then, for a moment, did some sort of journalism by getting hold of the speech and playing it. And I don't remember any of the commentary on public media trying to say that it was okay for Gyurcsany to lie. (But please, give us examples of the bad commentaries and invitees.) What MTV did yesterday was a bad parody of journalism.
They will have another shot tomorrow, President ex-Dr Schmitt is invited to Vasarnapi Ujsag on Radio Kossuth. We will see then whether they will ask the real questions.

On opposition media. Of course no one is really banned or fined. But Klub Radio (no, I don't like them, because they are very biased) did not get their frequency renewed, many many journalists were fired from MTV and Hungarian Radio, and the government has pressured even private media (e.g. Index into censorings and firings - Tamas Bodoky and Roland Baksa would be examples there).

Most characteristic of the state of Hungarian media is the pulling of Peter Tolgyessy from air on Kossuth. He is an ex-Fidesz member, a conservative political analyst. The Gyurcsany government put pressure on the Hungarian radio to take him off, so did Orban. The two sides are just about the same in having zero respect for independent opinion that they cannot micromanage.

I guess they got the the tape from someone in the socialist party. What's your point?
Just to reiterate it: my point is that yesterday, MTV employees failed to act as journalists. The job of a journalist is to relentlessly pursue the truth and share it with the public. In particular, public media has to relentlessly pursue the truth on matters of national interest and share it with the nation. Let me give you an example: if journalists at MTV had ascertained by, say, 12pm that Mr Schmitt would not resign, it was their duty to share it with all of us. In the interview in particular, the "journalist" should have asked the questions which the nation was interested in not give a chance to the president to get out as easily as possible. This is independent of what I think of the whole Schmitt-case. In fact, if facts are on his side, we should still find out about them. Just to give more concrete examples:

(1) Schmitt stated that he could not use proper references because his work was produced on a typewriter. Adequate response: go and find out whether this holds water. In fact it does not, other theses at the same university at the same type, produced on a typewriter, had references. Then ask him (or his office) about this.
(2) Schmitt claimed, with the helping hand of the "journalist" (!) that the work contained new and useful knowledge for society. I think this could be true. But the adequate follow up question should have been: how was this possible if the work was not publicly available?
(3) Schmitt claimed that Semmelweis University did not ask for his opinion. This is not true, since the investigative commission visited in his office. The "journalist" should have followed up on this. Also: why should they have asked for his opinion, what would it have been and what difference would it have made?
(4) Schmitt claimed that his committee's (here I mean the people judging his thesis, this is an American English phrase for that) evaluation was not made public, even though this would have defended him. This is false, all of these opinions were released in the wake of the scandal in January. The "journalist" presumably knew this (if I know this, and he must have prepared very hard for this interview, reading everything available on the case, right?), but failed to ask any follow up questions.
(5) Schmitt said "we produced a work following the rules." The "journalist" did not follow up on what "we" means. Also, it is abundantly clear that the work was not produced following the rules from both the investigative commission's report and the follow-up rulings of the Unviersity. Yet no follow up was done here either.

A similar "interview" was made with him on Kossuth Radio in January by another "journalist," Csilla Csuros. This kind of stuff is an absolute waste of taxpayers' money.

May I throw in my hat, fellow commentators? Gyurcsány was a shame and did quite a lot to the demise of this country, but now he is political history. Whereas I sensed a deep and true divide in the political assessment of Feri within the country, Schmitt is morally despised both by the politically uninterested (quite big chunk) and many Fidesz supporters, too. Political legend has it that for István Dobi, head of the Preidium after Soviet tanks and betrayal brutally smashed the 1956 revolution no corridor in the mighty Parliament building proved wide enough, he was usually so drunk. But, even his political and human suitability to that post must have stood above that of Pali's to his.

"Corpse robbers is what we shall become. The worst nation of all. I did not hpld you back. I am guilty" This is what the late Pál (too) Teleki, geography professor, then PM, wrote to Governor Horthy before his suicide. A moral man in the monment of moral lucidity after many sins. That was then, at a very low point of Hungaqr's history. But there is a road for us further down. Down much under.

And this is the point. Politics must, in the end of the day, be moral - otherwise is lost.